


Countdown to Never

by Khaelis



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-29 02:44:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12621392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khaelis/pseuds/Khaelis
Summary: Ever since she turned eighteen, Rose has been living with that clock on her wrist, countdown to the exact moment she'd meet her soulmate.Except that clock is broken, and it probably means no soulmate will come for her. Doesn't it?[Time Petals Prompt | Soulmate AU]





	Countdown to Never

**Author's Note:**

> New one-shot, based on the timepetalsprompt :  
> Soulmate AU where everyone has a clock on their wrist that has a countdown to the moment you'll meet your soulmate. But since Rose's started it has been acting broken, sometimes it says a week, some times 10 years, sometimes a billon years and sometimes -100 years. Turns out the clocks aren't very good at dealing with time travel.
> 
> I kinda turned it into my own version, but the base idea is there - I think?  
> Never done a Soulmate AU before (because I don't like them), but I really liked this idea and I wanted to give it a shot!
> 
> I hope you'll like it, please let me know what you think! :)

* * *

 

 

She would do this, sometimes. When sleep would decide not to visit her, when her thoughts were too busy for dreams to come, when her sorrow was so heavy her eyelids wouldn't close over her tears, she would do this. And lately, as the date of her twenty-fifth birthday had arrived so fast she believed whole months had been swallowed within a blink of an eye, she’d been doing it much more often. That was one of those nights. The  _ last  _ night.

 

Rose brushed the pad of her thumb against the knot of the dark blue tie covered in red baroque flowers that was neatly spread on the table. A brand new tie, never worn, that she never left. When at home, it always remained within her reach, always close enough to keep an eye on it at all times. When going out, it always remained  in its small box lined with pink silk, deep in the depth of her  bag. Just in case. That was probably why it had lost a bit of its colours, why it looked a bit rumpled, and why it smelled of vanilla and strawberry - the smell of the perfume she’d been using for years. That tie had been in her possession for so long that she almost considered as an ancient relic, an invaluable trinket that had become synonymous with loss and hope, comfort and despair. She didn’t quite know the reasons that had led her to buy this particular tie a few years back, but when she’d left that little shop with the shopping bag swinging merrily in her hand, she had known it was the right choice.

 

The soft material gliding against her fingertips was reassuring, somehow. It allowed her to believe that her soulmate was out there, somewhere, and, should she dare say,  _ sometime _ . It wasn’t enough to free her from the sorrow and the tears that never failed to come when her eyes fell on her wrist. Those numbers. That clock. That bloody broken clock.

 

When the numbers had started to glow under the skin of her wrist on her eighteenth birthday, she had been terrified to see that only seconds had appeared. Fifty-seven seconds, to be precise. She had heard the tales of soulmates finding each other almost as soon as the clock lit to life. The legends of those who didn’t even get to see the number because they hadn’t left each other since the early years of childhood. She had been horrified at the thought of meeting her soulmate without getting the chance to prepare, or to get used to  _ his  _ aura - because she had instantly known that it would be a man, though unable to explain why, much like all the others. Her heart had almost stopped when an almost blinding four had turned into a three, and a knock on the door had been heard with a petrifying simultaneity. 

 

But then, Mickey had come in with a small gift bag hooked on one hand and a cake he had managed to balance precariously on the other, and a look at her wrist had told her that, thank the Heavens, he was not the one. The relief had been short-lived. The numbers had started to scroll under her skin, so fast that for a moment only a small square of light had shone, expending all the way around her wrist until a very different - and just as distressing - length of digits had frozen on a solid billion year in the future.

 

On that night, a minus three thousand years was staring back at her, and instead of counting down, the seconds were counting up. She was used to it, just as much as she was used to seeing numbers she wasn’t even sure she’d be able to pronounce. At first, it had been hard to cope. It had broken her heart more than once to see others talking about their clocks getting closer to the final zero that would signify the beginning of a new life with their soulmates. It had made her sick for days to witness the  _ moment _ , as they called it, happening to people around her, when her own clock was painfully stuck on the hundred, or the thousand, sometimes the million mark. But after a few years, the hurt and the sorrow had turned into resolved mourning. Because, on the eve of her twenty-fifth birthday, the last day on which her soulmate could finally manifest himself, the three thousand years meant that he would never come. She had hoped that everything would click back into place a few days before the fatal date, but she had given up on that hope a few hours earlier. Her clock was broken, it simply matched no others on this damned Earth, and she was bound to spend the rest of her days alone, mocked and pitied.

 

Rose sipped on what was left of her wine, contemplating the pretty tie, wondering if the person she had bought this for seven years ago was still alive, if he had ever lived at all, if he was just a figment her imagination has built on the wishful thinking of a young woman who desperately wanted to find her soulmate. 

 

Ten to midnight. The alarm rang on her phone, and the numbers on her wrist didn't change. A lone tear rolled down her cheek as she pulled on her sleeve to hide the broken clock and stuffed the tie back in its box. Ten minutes, out of all the days, the years he could have come. Ten minutes left, ten short minutes for her soulmate to make a long awaited apparition. But no one would come, and she knew it. No one ever came on the very last minutes. That wasn’t how things worked.

 

Rose put her empty glass down in the kitchen sink and flicked the light off, ignoring with fierce disgust the dull glow that filtered through the soft material of her hoodie. She went to her bedroom, dragging her feet on the carpeted floor, and plopped down on her bed with a heavy sigh. She wouldn’t cry. She would keep on living like she has always lived, with that little hole carved on the muscle of her heart that would never be filled.

 

She closed her eyes and tried to empty her mind of all the negative emotions swarming around her head, turning on the side to bury her face in one of her pillows. It was quiet, except for the ticking of the clock she could hear coming from the living room, a ticking that didn’t bother her as much now that she knew it didn’t matter anymore. Time would go on, she would go on, and the only countdown that would weigh on her shoulders would be the one getting her closer to her death. 

 

Suddenly, unexpectedly, a soft whirring sound drowned the one of the ticking. A weak, mechanical groan she had never heard before. She sat in her bed, eyes and ears wide open, heart beating hard and fast against her ribcage. The strange noise died down, only to echo again a second later. Her fingers went to the clock on her wrist, scratching the skin that had somehow become hotter. She wouldn’t look at it. This couldn’t happen. 

 

She got up from her bed and very slowly made her way to the door, pricking her ear only to hear a muffled bang. Her clock was now burning, and she had to look down at her wrist to make sure it hadn’t burst into flames. Her stomach churned when she realized what this could mean, and her breath got caught in her throat when she heard a voice coming from her living-room.

  
  


“Are you sure this is the right place, old girl?” a deep, masculine voice whispered - and sent shivers down her spine.

  
  


She took a few shy steps towards the voice. She should be terrified that someone had managed to get into her flat without an invitation - for all she knew, it could be a burglar or a serial killer. But she couldn’t help the little bubble of hope and enchantment that was steadily growing in the pit of her belly, the hope she thought had vanished flaring back to life with a ferocity that made her fingers shake and her mouth turn drier than cotton. A quick look at the digital clock on the wall told her that it was two to midnight. Two minutes that could change her life.

 

She switched the light on, and the gasp that escaped her mouth matched the gasp he let out when his eyes met hers. Rose stared in awe at that tall, slim man, taking in the pinstriped suit he was wearing and noticing with a sharp tug on her stomach that the tie around his neck was of the exact same kind as the one she had bought years ago. She couldn’t decide if she liked his face - a crooked nose, old-fashioned sideburns, a wonky ear, asymmetrical eyebrows. Odd, how all these not-quite-beautiful elements seemed to all fit together into the most handsome of features. Yes, she definitely liked his face. Especially his eyes. A deep chocolate brown that seemed to have seen too many things in too long a life, but that still sparkled with a kindness and a gentleness that managed to calm the storm raging in her heart and head.

  
  


“Hello,” he greeted her with a sheepish wiggle of his fingers. “I’m the Doctor.”

“Rose,” she offered her own name in a quiet voice, groping her way to him through the furniture, unable to detach her eyes from his face. “Rose Tyler.”

“Oh, I know you are,” he said softly, the beginning of a smile tugging on his lips. “It’s nice to finally meet you in person, Rose.”

“You took your time,” she pointed out, a tad more coldly than she had intended.

“Ah, Time,” the Doctor nodded, crossing his fingers together and swinging lightly on the balls of his feet. “I happen to know a lot about Time. And I happen to know that now is  _ the  _ Time. The human conception of Time is... Approximate. Time is relative. Human clocks are too... Rational. Time can shrink just as much as it can expand, but your clocks ignore that. A second is a second, a minute is a minute, even when it seems to last too long or not enough.”

“What do you mean… Human?” Rose asked, finding the use of this adjective bizarre, not to say dismaying.

“Human, as in inhabitant of planet Earth,” he shrugged, as it it made perfect sense.

“Because you are…”

“Alien. Time Lord, from the planet Gallifrey. Last of my species. And this,” he said as he pointed a thumb towards the blue police box she had failed to notice despite it occupying most of her living-room, “is my home. The Tardis. I know you don’t really know me. But I know you. You’ve been here with me, for seven years. And I know you’re the one.”

  
  


The Doctor tugged on his sleeve a little, and a clock, much like her own, was glowing under his skin. One minute. Rose glanced at her own clock, and for the first time since the numbers had appeared, they matched the ones that man was showing her.

  
  


“I’m sorry I made you think yours was broken,” he apologized softly, reaching out with tentative fingers to caress her wrist - and the chaste touch sparked a disconcerting feeling of familiarity. “Side-effect of time travel. I wish I could have let you know I was there, waiting for you. I have been feeling you throughout these seven years, Rose. Your doubts, your fears, your pains. You’ve broken my heart so many times. But my clock wouldn’t allow me to find you. I had to wait. I never stopped thinking about you. Never. You became part of me the moment your clock started. And I’m so thankful for it, Rose. So grateful for you. Because ever since you came into my life, I have never felt alone. Not once. And I’m sorry I couldn’t let you feel that you’ve never been alone either. I thought I had. I tried. I tried so hard to be there for you when you needed it the most.”

  
  


Rose released a shaky breath at those words, and she looked down at where his fingers joined her wrist. She mapped the contours of the back of his hand with her fingertips, the feel of his cold skin under hers a bit uncanny. Apart from the difference of temperature, nothing about it looked alien. Aliens didn’t exist, or so she had firmly believed until that man had appeared. Seeing him standing here, in her living-room, with that big box behind him, looked anything but real. A Time Lord. A traveller of Time. Surely this was just another fantasy her mind was making up because deep inside she couldn’t accept the fact that she’d be alone for the rest of her life.

  
  


“Think, Rose,” he murmured softly, twining his thumb with hers. “Think about all those times you could feel me. Remember me, like I remember you.”

  
  


Because she had nothing to lose, nothing more to hope for, she did. She thought back to the time she had bought the tie, about the almost instantaneous epiphany she’d had when she’d seen it on display in the little shop, the irrepressible feeling she’d had that it was the only thing that would correspond the most to him. She thought back to the time she had received the results of her A-levels, when her own excitement had been overwhelmed by an underlying joy and pride she was quite sure hadn’t been hers. To the time she had sat through a job interview, with that tiny voice in her mind, whispering words of encouragement and praise. To all the times she had felt a reassuring presence, like a persistent eye watching over her, making sure she was okay, making her feel like everything would be alright even in the most disastrous or hopeless situations. It may have been him. She wanted to believe it had been him.  That didn’t explain the alien bit. 

 

The Doctor seem to feel she was treading on the right path. He knew she only needed a light push in the right direction.

  
  


“Come with me?” he asked her, gently clasping his long fingers around hers in such a fitting way that Rose couldn’t help thinking it was proof of them belonging together.

  
  


He pushed the door of the blue box open and stepped inside it, tugging on her hand a bit when she hesitated. Rose took a peek above his shoulder, and the little she saw was enough to make her gasp and for her hesitation to give way to enthusiasm. Soon, she was standing on the passerel leading to the large console covered in buttons and levers of all sorts, her eyes going up the glass tube that stood in the middle. She wished she had more than two eyes to take it all in at the same time, from the walls, to the grating under her feet, the numerous corridors that stretched in every direction. Her head started to buzz, the grating to shake, the lights to blink on and off. And she realized she wasn’t alone anymore. The Doctor’s hand in hers an anchor, a lifeline she was holding on to, and the singular presence at the back of her mind that didn’t quite match his - a distinctly feminine halo that shone through her, friendly and comforting. And definitely alien, in its proper meaning. Foreign, weird, unexpected, but at the same time oh so wonderful.

  
  


“Are you really…” Rose started, daring to shuffle closer to him until their shoulders bumped.

“Alien?” he offered when she couldn’t finish her question.

“My soulmate?” she corrected with a quivering small smile. 

“That’s what this universe thinks anyway. That’s what  _ I _ think,” he said softly, bringing their wrists together so they could both witness the perfect synchronicity of their clocks. “Fifteen seconds to decide if you’re willing to trust me. I know I trust you, Rose Tyler.”

  
  


Rose turned on her feet to face him and brought both her hands on his cheeks, her touch feathery and tender. She’d seen the matching numbers. She’d seen his eyes and the depth of his feelings. She didn’t care if he wasn’t human. She didn’t care if he didn’t quite correspond to what she had wished for, or even expected. This was  _ her moment _ . With  _ her  _ soulmate. A loving, gentle soulmate endowed with a kind and yet strong mind. She still didn’t know anything about him, but she knew she trusted him, just as he trusted her.

 

The numbers on her wrist boiled under her skin as she stood on the tip of her toes, and they glowed so much, even more than his, that they both had to close their eyes. Their lips met halfway in a delicate, warm kiss, and the intensity of it had Rose tighten her hold on the sides of his face, while one of his hand found its way to the nape of her neck and the other went to cradle her hip. It lasted just long enough for their clocks to disappear, replaced by intricate patterns made of circles that she’d later find out symbolized the extent of their love and devotion, the power of their adoration and allegiance. But for that moment being, their lips simply separated with a soft pop, their foreheads meeting instead, eyes staring into each other’s souls.

  
  


“Hello,” Rose giggled, a little breathily, unable to believe that things had taken such a fantastic turn.

“Hello yourself,” the Doctor smiled back, brushing a strand of her hair back behind her ear. “And happy birthday, Rose Tyler.”

  
  


His hand momentarily left her face to reach inside his pocket, and he took out a long chain on which a small key was attached.

  
  


“This is my gift,” he told her, unlocking the tiny clasp, ready to attach it around her neck. “A Tardis key. If you want it. If you want to come with me. Travel the stars with me. Travel the whole universe. The whole of time and space at your fingertips.”

“You really are alien, aren’t you?” Rose whispered, bending willingly so he could fasten the necklace.   
“I’m as alien to you as you are to me,” he said with an affectionate smile. “And I want to know everything about you, Rose Tyler.”

“And... I want to know everything about you, too.”

  
  


That answer, the first words that spoke of her desire to truly be with him, had the Doctor melt in a wave of relief.

  
  


“Does that mean you’re coming?” he asked, hopeful, wanting to make sure there’d be no misunderstanding.

“Everywhere you go, I’ll go,” she said before she drew him into a tight hug. “Thank you, for coming to me.”

“I’ll always come to you,” he mumbled against the skin of her neck, enjoying for the first time in decades the touch and the warmth of another, loving the butterflies that flapped their wings in his stomach at the single thought that he’d just found his true soulmate. “Forever together.”

“Forever,” she pledged, sealing her promise with a squeeze on his wrist and a lingering kiss on his temple, just happy to feel the tickle of his mind against hers and the comforting proximity of  _ him _ .

  
  


A year later, when Rose would finally bond, body and soul, with the Doctor, she would think that waiting seven years for such an perfect soulmate had been a very small price to pay.

 

* * *

 


End file.
